Shaping our future.
From IRISH NEWS December 8th, 1998
THE framework for the development of Northern Ireland up to 2025, launched by Environment Minister Lord Dubs today, is the country's first strategic planning document in more than 20 years. The Shaping our Future document outlines plans to create a "compact and thriving" metropolitan area centred on Belfast, make Derry the economic and cultural hub of the north west of Ireland, and build up a network of seven strong regional towns. The towns targetted for development into "major service centres" are Craigavon, Newry, Antrim, Ballymena, Coleraine, Omagh, and Enniskillen. Criteria used to select the towns included population size and vicinity to existing major transport corridors. Also highlighted as "key service centres" are Newtownards, Downpatrick, Banbridge, Armagh, Dungannon, Cookstown, Magherafelt, Strabane, Limavady, Ballymoney, Ballycastle and Larne. Included in the draft framework are major plans for an extra 200,000 homes to be built in the next 28 years. Planners expect the population to increase by 50,000 to almost 1.8 million by 2025, the third fastest rate of growth in the UK, thanks to a high birth rate and continued inward migration. The framework points out that the high percentage of people in the 20- 60 age group, one of the highest in Europe, will create special opportunities and challenges for the future. Essential for the future prosperity and quality of life in Northern Ireland is a strategic transport network. The document says: "While the region will continue to place a great deal of reliance on private transport, unrestrained car use, particularly in the larger urban centres, is not a sustainable option in the long term. The emphasis in the future needs to be more directed at moving people and goods rather than moving cars." More than 450 voluntary and community groups were involved in an 18-month consultation process to produce the framework as well as over 100 official bodies. More than 200 formal submissions were made. The document says: "Northern Ireland, in common with other regions throughout Europe, is faced with the key challenge of providing a high quality of life for all its citizens. The region needs to build on its strengths and look outwards to prosper in the face of the competitive challenges in the global market of the 21st century." It continues: "Long term planning for the region is a complex process. Reaching agreement on the most appropriate regional strategic framework involves difficult choices and decisions affecting the whole community."
"At the same time it is also recognised that the resilience of the community demonstrated over the past 30 years is a key resource for future regional development. Community involvement has therefore been central to the process of developing the framework." The document's functions are described as: * providing a strategic planning framework for strengthening the regional economy and tackling social disadvantage; * protecting and enhancing the physical, natural and man-made assets of the region; * providing a spatial framework for transport, air and water quality, energy and waste strategies, and for infrastructure providers and public service promoters; and * providing an over-arching strategic framework for development plans, and to guide public and private investment decisions relating to land use. Environmental concerns are also addressed to encourage the "proper stewardship of all the region's environmental resources, its good quality air and water, its relatively-unspoilt countryside and its built heritage".
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